The rain pelleted the parking lot and I glimpsed Sally jumping out of her truck, holding her plastic folder over her head. She dashed into the coffee shop, stood at the door for a moment, shaking of the rain at the door, stamping her feet. She made a face as she shook out her hair and wiped her folder on her jacket, then walked over to the counter.
Kathy greeted her, and Sally ordered, then she pulled out her smartphone, scrolling down the screen. She frowned, shook her head then slipped the phone into her pocket.
She went over to the condiment table, and pried off her top to doctor it, and the coffee spilled on her hand. She stifled a word, grabbed napkins and mopped off the table. She added her sugar, then close the top, wadded the napkins into a ball and threw them in to the garbage.
Then she flopped down on the leather chair in the corner, opposite me, and sighed.
“Something eating you?”
Her lips made a tight, pinched line on her face, her shoulders rose, fell fast. “I couldn’t find my writing bag, and my sitter was late and I got absolutely no writing done this week…how did you know?”
“Really? Over the next few weeks we’re going to talk about one of the most important elements of writing – emotional layering. We’ll get to the different layers of emotions next week. But today, I want to lay down a definition for Showing, not Telling.”
“There are a lot of confusing conversations about Showing versus Telling. However, I think many of the conversations center around the wrong topic. Showing is NOT about describing everything that happens. Showing is about helping the reader experience the emotions and motivations of the character. It’s about the reader getting into the character’s head to enjoy the journey.”
“Let’s take a common issue: conveying emotions. If you say: She felt grief, or even eg; (and this is more common), ‘Grief overtook her’ you are pinpointing one emotion your reader must feel with the character. Instead, show us how despair makes her feel – physically, or act, or think, or even see the word. Let us into their heads:
“Here’s an example: She stood at the edge of the closet and stared at his polished shoes, at his pressed wool suits, at his crisp silky red ties. A tidy man. Not the kind to wrap his car around a tree. But there, in the back…she pushed aside the shirts and pulled out his letter jacket, the one he’d wrapped around her the night they’d met. She inhaled. Thirty years, and still his scent lingered. Please, let it linger. Please let her rewind, go back to the fight, erase her words. Erase his anger. Without a word, she stepped inside the closet, closed the door behind her, pulled the jacket over her, and wept.
“Never once do I say that she is grieving – but (hopefully) you get it. The point of not telling, and showing isn’t to dumb down the reading, but rather to connect us more to the POV character.”
“Here’s the part that people confuse. Tell actions that are common to all of us. She tied her shoe, she made coffee, she answered the phone. Show actions that you want to make impact. If you want the answering the phone to have impact, then have her reach for the phone, check the caller id, maybe hover her thumb over the receive button. Then push it before her courage fails (or whatever).
Telling is when you tell someone how to feel. It relates to the emotion to the story. If I had said: She stood in front of the closet and grieved, that would be telling the reader her emotion.
Further from that, but also a bit telling, is: She stood in front of the closet and felt grief course through her.
Better would be: She stood in front of the closet and wept.
Best would be to use the action – the example I gave.
Truth: Showing is about bringing us into the mind and heart of the character to understand their emotional journey.
Dare: Are you bogging down your story by showing actions that have no emotional connection to the story? Ask: How does the emotion impact your character, and how can I show it without telling us what the emotion is? Show us the emotion, don’t tell us that it exists.
Sally still hadn’t picked up her notebook. “I still don’t feel like writing.”
I glanced back at Kathy our favorite barista. “I think we’re going to need a refill here.”
Stop back tomorrow, in Quick Skills. I have a little pep talk for Sally!
Susie May
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